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Looking Ahead: Upcoming Features In SlideDeck 2.1

Can you believe it’s been almost 60 days since we launched SlideDeck 2 (Ok, ok 52 days – we’re optimists around here, so we round up)? Us neither. It’s a small, but somewhat significant milestone for us, so we figured now’s a good time to give you guys a glimpse into what we’re planning with the imminent release of SlideDeck 2.1

SlideDeck 2.1

We learned a great many things in a very short amount of time with the launch of SlideDeck 2 back in March this year – chief among them being that we inadvertently kept the big changes in SlideDeck 2 a secret from you all in the run-up to launch. Well that’s changing – we want to keep you fully posted as to what we have up our sleeves, starting today with a sneak peek at the early stages of SlideDeck 2.1 – which will be a free upgrade for all current SlideDeck 2 customers.

While we were super-happy with SlideDeck 2, we did make some pretty bold decisions that affected many of you – specifically the ability to customize the layout of your slides, as well as to offer a bit of variety in the content of your SlideDecks. That’s why we’ve decided to add in two huge new features to SlideDeck 2.1 – Custom Slides, and Mixed Content Sources – and you get to go behind the scenes with some of our wireframes hot off the press!

We’ll be refreshing the Manage SlideDecks screen to make a clear distinction between dynamic & static SlideDecks [click to enlarge]

Custom Slides

Even though it’s nice when all the work is done for you, we definitely know that sometimes you want to present your content just so, and it’s times like this when you need granular control to really get under the hood and craft your masterpiece. That’s why we’ve decided to enable the creation of custom slides containing your own HTML in SlideDeck 2.1.

Right now, our admin interface is very much oriented towards the needs of the dynamic sliders, so we’ve been dedicating a lot of brainpower towards how best to accommodate the more defined nature of SlideDecks containing custom HTML. Our resident Art Director Dan and Lead Developer Dave were gracious enough to share some of their initial wireframes, so you can see what we’re thinking:

The first logical step is choosing your custom slide type for each slide in your SlideDeck. You might even be able to re-order the slides via drag & drop! [click to enlarge]

We’re hoping to allow for a variety of preset layouts in each slide [click to enlarge]

Mixed Content Sources

One of the things we’ve frequently been asked since launching SlideDeck 2 is what happens if one were to desire a Flickr image and a YouTube video in the same SlideDeck? To which we’d respond: “This is madness!”. To which you might reply “Madness? This is Sparta!!“, at which point we’ll have to concede that you have a pretty good point.

So we’re adding a new Mixed Content feature in SlideDeck 2.1 – you’ll be able to mashup content from multiple sources around the web, and present them in a single SlideDeck. Want to intersperse video clips from your YouTube channel with your holiday pics on Flickr? Looking to splice Instagram pics into a running showcase of your Twitter stream? Yep, you’ll be able to bring all your scattered web content seamlessly together right on your site, housed in a sweet dynamic content slider. Pretty cool, right?

As you’ll see in our initial wireframes below, it’s a bit of a shift from the very singular focus in the current admin interface, but we’re thinking it’ll make it super-simple to create varied and creative SlideDecks.

Creating a Mixed Content Source SlideDeck will start out pretty much the same as with version 2 [Click to enlarge]

In SlideDeck 2.1, though, you’ll be able to add in additional content sources to a single SlideDeck with the click of a button! [Click to enlarge]

This is just the tip of the iceberg – we’ll have more announcements as we finalize more of the additions and improvements headed your way in SlideDeck 2.1. Oh yeah, and did I mention that this update will be free to all current SlideDeck 2 users? (You’re welcome!)

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Cole

Thanks Jason. I’m definitely coming at it from the tech savvy designer place and I’m by no means a real programmer and know less about JavaScript than PHP as it relates to WordPress. I understand the ease of use need for “regular” people…site end users.

What I’d like is less about developmental (js) customizing but focused on allowing designers to skin the display. Remove backgrounds, change colors, replace interface elements with our own. Similar to how we could do in the previous version. It could be as simple as replacing a set of graphic elements or allowing us to override CSS within our own stylesheet.

While 2.0 has great features out of the box, most of our clients come looking for custom design for their sites and that extends to features within them. That capability was truly what drew me to Slidedeck in the first place…knowing I could customize the look and the tutorials and case studies y’all had on your site made the sale.

Cole

Customizing how content displays is a CRITICAL need, especially when rolling Post content through a slider. If we, as designers/developers, cannot control how we can present the slider within our site designs, all of the great function goes out the window.

The second a client asks “can you have it integrate with our overall design better [in some specific way]” we’re toast with the 2.0 version.

I’ve already lost one sale of Slidedeck and had to use a different slider method fora client site due to the inability to create a custom “skin” for Slidedeck any longer.

Jason

Thanks for the insight. Yeah, it’s tricky to provide very granular control over the appearance of sliders, without overwhelming the average user with a gazillion options, which is why we originally separated out the SlideDeck.js Developers’ Kit – that way, the people who wanted to finely customize their sliders could hop into the code, and those less interested can create sliders with a few clicks. That said, there are a TON of customization options available in SlideDeck, (29 million combinations enough for ya? =), and this will only grow in the future.

Rest assured, the 2.1 update is one step forward in our mission to provide that control to everyone in a user-friendly way.

Simon

We’ve been supporting the UI improvements and benefits for all ever since we heard about SlideDeck, and I know the team at http://www.WPSamurais.com are keen for 2.1 to be launched and to integrate it into all their theme designs.

Can’t wait and even better it’s free to all 2 users.

This is a great example of building great software and looking after customers,
great work.